Aratov

“ If what I have heard was truly your voice; if the feeling overmastering me is love; if you are now convinced that I love you, I, who till now have neither loved nor known any woman; if you know that since your death I have come to love you passionately, inconsolably; if you do not want me to go mad,—show yourself, Clara!’
Aratov had hardly uttered this last word, when all at once he felt that some one was swiftly approaching him from behind—as that day on the boulevard—and laying a hand on his shoulder. He turned round, and saw no one. ”

“ But as soon as Aratov found himself alone in his own room, he quickly felt as though something were enfolding him about, as though he were once more in the power, yes, in the power of another life, another being. Though he had indeed said to Anna in that sudden delirious outburst that he was in love with Clara, that saying struck even him now as senseless and frantic. No, he was not in love; and how could he be in love with a dead woman, whom he had not even liked in her lifetime, whom he had almost forgotten? ”

“ Platonida Ivanovna remained a minute standing where she was, pointed to the candle, grumbled, ‘Why not put it out ... an accident happens in a minute?’ and as she went out, could not refrain, though only at a distance, from making the sign of the cross over him.
Aratov fell asleep quickly, and slept till morning. He even got up in a happy frame of mind ... though he felt sorry for something.... He felt light and free. ‘What romantic fancies, if you come to think of it!’ he said to himself with a smile. He never once glanced either at the stereoscope, or at the page torn out of the diary. ”

“ A nature passionate, wilful — hardly good-tempered, hardly very clever, but gifted — was expressed in every feature.
For some time she did not raise her eyes; but suddenly she started, and passed over the rows of spectators a glance intent, but not attentive, absorbed, it seemed, in herself. . . . 'What tragic eyes she has!' observed a man sitting behind Aratov, a grey-headed dandy with the face of a Revel harlot, well known in Moscow as a prying gossip and writer for the papers. ”

“ Platonida Ivanovna tried to protest more, but Aratov answered her in an utterly unexpected and unheard-of way: ‘I’m not a child,’ he shouted, and he turned pale all over, his lips trembled, and his eyes glittered wrathfully. ‘I’m twenty-six, I know what I’m about, I’m free to do what I like! I suffer no one ... Give me the money for the journey, pack my box with my clothes and linen ... and don’t torture me! I’ll be back in a week, Platosha,’ he added, in a somewhat softer tone.
Platosha got up, sighing and groaning, and, without further protest, crawled to her room. Yasha had alarmed her. ”

“ Could she have put it somewhere in the diary, and not have noticed it when she lent the book?
In the delirium that preceded his death, Aratov spoke of himself as Romeo ... after the poison; spoke of marriage, completed and perfect; of his knowing now what rapture meant. Most terrible of all for Platosha was the minute when Aratov, coming a little to himself, and seeing her beside his bed, said to her, ‘Aunt, what are you crying for?—because I must die? But don’t you know that love is stronger than death?... Death! death! where is thy sting? ”

“ All the following day Aratov was in very low spirits. ‘What is it, Yasha?’ Platonida Ivanovna said to him: ‘you seem somehow all loose ends to-day!’... In her own peculiar idiom the old lady’s expression described fairly accurately Aratov’s mental condition. He could not work and he did not know himself what he wanted. At one time he was eagerly on the watch for Kupfer, again he suspected that it was from Kupfer that Clara had got his address ... ”

“ Platonida Ivanovna was sitting at the window, her knitting in her hands (she was knitting her darling Yasha a comforter, the thirty-eighth she had made him in the course of his life!) , and was much astonished to see him. Aratov rarely went up to her, and if he wanted anything, used always to call, in his delicate voice, from his study : 'Aunt Platosha!' However, she made him sit down, and sat all alert, in expectation of his first words, watching him through her spectacles with one eye, over them with the other. ”

“ He thought much more about her sister Anna. ‘There,’ he thought, ‘is an exquisite, charming creature. What delicate comprehension of everything, what a loving heart, what a complete absence of egoism! And how girls like that spring up among us, in the provinces, and in such surroundings too! She is not strong, and not good-looking, and not young; but what a splendid helpmate she would be for a sensible, cultivated man! That’s the girl I ought to have fallen in love with!’ Such were Aratov’s reflections ... but on his arrival in Moscow things put on quite a different complexion. ”

“ Kupfer talked of pride! But in the first place we know’ (Aratov ought to have said: we have read in books) ,...‘we know that pride can exist side by side with levity of conduct; and secondly, how came she, if she were so proud, to make an appointment with a man who might treat her with contempt ... and did treat her with it ... and in a public place, moreover ... in a boulevard!’ At this point Aratov recalled all the scene in the boulevard, and he asked himself, Had he really shown contempt for Clara? ”

“ What do they care? It’s little they take to heart. If some poor fool comes in their way, they pounce on him. But sensible folk looked down on them. Did you ever see, pray, the like of such in our house?’
Aratov made no reply, and went back to his study. Platonida Ivanovna looked after him, shook her head, put on her spectacles again, and again took up her comforter ... but more than once sank into thought, and let her knitting-needles fall on her knees. ”

“ To no one in the whole world I have given my heart!’ she mastered her powers, gained fire; and when she came to the words, ‘My whole life has but been a pledge of a meeting true with thee,’ her hitherto thick voice rang out boldly and enthusiastically, while her eyes just as boldly and directly fastened upon Aratov. She went on with the same fervour, and only towards the end her voice dropped again ”

“ On leaving the country-place where they had always lived up till then, the elder Aratov settled in the old capital, with the object of putting his son to the university, for which he had himself prepared him; he bought for a trifle a little house in one of the outlying streets, and established himself in it, with all his books and scientific odds and ends. And of books and odds and ends he had many—for he was a man of some considerable learning ... ‘an out-and-out eccentric,’ as his neighbours said of him. He positively passed among them for a sorcerer ”

“ Her very appearance ... But where are you off to?’ Kupfer interrupted himself, seeing that Aratov was reaching after his hat.
‘I don’t feel quite well,’ replied Aratov. ‘Good-bye ... I’ll come in another time.’
Kupfer stopped him and looked into his face. ‘What a nervous fellow you are, my boy! Just look at yourself.... You’re as white as chalk.’
‘I’m not well,’ repeated Aratov, and, disengaging himself from Kupfer’s detaining hands, he started homewards. Only at that instant it became clear to him that he had come to Kupfer with the sole object of talking of Clara... ”

“ Aratov waited ... and waited, and dropped his head on the pillow. ‘Hallucinations of hearing,’ he thought. ‘But if ... if she really were here, close at hand?... If I were to see her, should I be frightened? or glad? But what should I be frightened of? or glad of? Why, of this, to be sure; it would be a proof that there is another world, that the soul is immortal. Though, indeed, even if I did see something, it too might be a hallucination of the sight....’
He lighted the candle, however, and in a rapid glance, not without a certain dread, scanned the whole room ... ”

“ THE RUSSIAN TONGUE
CLARA MILITCH I
In the spring of 1878 there was living in Moscow, in a small wooden house in Shabolovka, a young man of five-and-twenty, called Yakov Aratov. With him lived his father’s sister, an elderly maiden lady, over fifty, Platonida Ivanovna. She took charge of his house, and looked after his household expenditure, a task for which Aratov was utterly unfit. Other relations he had none. A few years previously, his father, a provincial gentleman of small property, had moved to Moscow together with him and Platonida Ivanovna, whom he always, however, called Platosha ”

“ I thought, Mercy on us! He’s never ill, is he? And I came in. Are you quite well?’
‘Perfectly well.’
‘Well, you must have had a bad dream then. Would you like me to burn a little incense?’
Aratov once more stared intently at his aunt, and laughed aloud.... The figure of the good old lady in her nightcap and dressing-jacket, with her long face and scared expression, was certainly very comic. All the mystery surrounding him, oppressing him—everything weird was sent flying instantaneously.
‘No, Platosha dear, there’s no need,’ he said. ‘Please forgive me for unwittingly troubling you. ”

“ Unluckily for him, Platosha did not know how to keep up a conversation at all; she gave him very brief replies, as though she suspected that was not what Yasha had come for.
‘Eh!’ she repeated, hurriedly, almost irritably plying her knitting-needles. ‘We all know: your mother was a darling ... a darling that she was.... And your father loved her as a husband should, truly and faithfully even in her grave; and he never loved any other woman’: she added, raising her voice and taking off her spectacles.
‘And was she of a retiring disposition?’ Aratov inquired, after a short silence. ”

“ A messenger brought him a note, written in a large irregular woman’s hand, and containing the following lines:
‘If you guess who it is writes to you, and if it is not a bore to you, come to-morrow after dinner to the Tversky boulevard—about five o’clock—and wait. You shall not be kept long. But it is very important. Do come.’
There was no signature. Aratov at once guessed who was his correspondent, and this was just what disturbed him. ‘What folly,’ he said, almost aloud; ‘this is too much. ”

“ Aratov got up from his seat to meet her, and introduced himself, mentioning his friend Kupfer. ‘Ah! Fyodor Fedoritch?’ the girl articulated softly, and softly she sank into a chair.
‘Now, then, you must talk to the gentleman,’ said Madam Milovidov, getting up heavily: ‘he’s taken trouble enough, he’s come all the way from Moscow on purpose—he wants to collect information about Katia. And will you, my good sir,’ she added, addressing Aratov—‘excuse me ... I’m going to look after my housekeeping. You can get a very good account of everything from Annotchka ”

“ Aratov went back the same day to the Milovidovs and spent three whole hours in conversation with Anna Semyonovna. Madame Milovidov was in the habit of lying down directly after dinner—at two o’clock—and resting till evening tea at seven. Aratov’s talk with Clara’s sister was not exactly a conversation; she did almost all the talking, at first with hesitation, with embarrassment, then with a warmth that refused to be stifled. It was obvious that she had adored her sister. The confidence Aratov had inspired in her grew and strengthened ”

“ What chance is there for gallantry or love-making? Sometimes they wouldn’t even admit me. Their servant, a muscular female, in a red sarafan, with an enormous bust, would stand right across the passage, and growl, “Where are you coming?” No, I positively can’t understand why she poisoned herself. Sick of life, I suppose,’ Kupfer concluded his cogitations philosophically.
Aratov sat with downcast head. ‘Can you give me the address of that house in Kazan?’ he said at last. ”

“ Aratov rose.
‘And take the diary and the photograph, in God’s name! Poor, poor Katia!... But you will give me back the diary,’ she added emphatically. ‘And if you write anything, be sure to send it me.... Do you hear?’
The entrance of Madame Milovidov saved Aratov from the necessity of a reply. He had time, however, to murmur, ‘You are an angel! Thanks! I will send anything I write....’
Madame Milovidov, half awake, did not suspect anything. So Aratov left Kazan with the photograph in the breast-pocket of his coat. The diary he gave back to Anna ”

“ She wondered, she brought out, however, a very old book in a warped leather binding, with copper clasps, covered with candle wax, and handed it over to Aratov. He bore it off to his own room, but for a long time he could not find the text ... he stumbled, however, on another: ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends’ (S. John xv. 13) . ”

“ Shouts of 'Bis!' 'Bravo!' resounded over the room; but she flung a rapid glance on Aratov, who neither shouted nor clapped — he did not particularly care for her singing — gave a slight bow, and walked out without taking the hooked arm proffered her by the long-haired pianist. She was called back . . . not very soon, she reappeared, with the same hesitating steps approached the piano, and whispering a couple of words to the accompanist, who picked out and put before him another piece of music, began Tchaykovsky's song : 'No, only he who knows the thirst to see.' . ”

“ He was a black-haired, red-cheeked young man, very jovial, talkative, and devoted to the feminine society Aratov so assiduously avoided. It is true Kupfer both lunched and dined with him pretty often, and even, being a man of small means, used to borrow trifling sums of him; but this was not what induced the free and easy German to frequent the humble little house in Shabolovka so diligently. The spiritual purity, the idealism of Yakov pleased him, possibly as a contrast to what he was seeing and meeting every day ”